Dear Editor,
Your editorial of Sunday, March 27, under the caption ‘First-comers’ provided a balanced and certainly less nuanced perspective on the issue of who were the first people to settle in this country.
From our early days in school we were taught that the Amerindians were the first people to settle in this country. Hence the description of Amerindians as indigenous to Guyana and as our “first people.” This is a historical fact which cannot be disputed.
This is not to deny the historical significance of the other race groups all of whom over the decades made a significant contribution to the growth and development of our Guyanese society.
This is why I found the debate in the letter columns regarding who were the first to arrive and who has more claim to ancestral rights a bit infantile and counterproductive in terms of our quest for a united and cohesive nation.
I think in this our 50th year as an independent country we need to emphasise more of what we share in common and what binds us as a nation. We have to focus more on how as a people we can work together to build a strong, united and prosperous Guyana.
Does it really matter who came first or second or for that matter last? And while it is true that our African brothers and sisters came to the shores of Guyana in chains and against their will, their contribution to Guyana is as significant as the East Indians who came after them and the Amerindians as well whom they both came and met.
The contributions of the other ethnic groups such as the Chinese and Portuguese cannot be underestimated as well.
This is what gives us our uniqueness. Our foreparents toiled long and hard to forge a society which we can all be proud of, one of unity in diversity.
My own view is that there is a strong case for compensation for both Africans and East Indians who were victims of savage exploitation by the European planters aided and abetted by the Colonial Office. But that is another matter which I will not get into at this time.
Some Amerindians, according to our historians, were used by the planter class in the last portion of the colonial period to catch the runaway slaves in an attempt to set one ethnic group against the other. East Indians were imported into the colony to replace Africans as cheap labour following the granting of full emancipation in 1838, which also served to engender ethnic suspicion in an attempt to divide and rule. This is why we cannot and must not fall prey to any ‘theory’ that is suggestive of any superior rights belonging to one ethnic group or the other.
This country belongs to each and every Guyanese in equal measure regardless of which ethnic group we may happen to belong.
The challenge before us is to find ways of drawing on our collective energy to create a society where there is equal opportunity for all to grow and develop to the full limit of their potential.
Yours faithfully,
Hydar Ally
